Talking about floods… it was two weeks into December before dastardly Des had quite done knocking seven bells out of Cumbria and, very soon after that, evil siblings Eva and Frank took up the bludgeon, and headed for York. (As an aside, is it just me, or were these storms ever as bad before we started giving them human identities?) Somewhere along the…
Author: hacketteonthehow
Cockermouth floods
Christchurch, Cockermouth, on a sticky Monday evening, and tensions are definitely running high. Not unlike the gravel. His own pre-presentation, warm-up man, Andy Brown – from the Environment Agency – tells a great tale about his father being a man of the church. Growing up, Andy recalls, his father would stand pretty much where he stands now, facing the…
Birds and bugs
Just when we thought there might be a twinkling of renewed engagement with the community, in the wake of the still ongoing otter debacle, the ongoing hedgerow debacle kicks in again. Back on 17 May, we were led to understand that the final section of hedgerow, along the roadside perimeter of the proposed ‘Strawberry Grange’, would be given a stay…
An otter’s tale
Otters. How many in this gem town were aware that, just a stick’s throw from their regular dog-walk along the banks of the Tom Rudd Beck, otters were building their homes, rearing families? Few, I suspect. Except those whose ducks or chickens have been snaffled and ponds raided, and those with a professional interest in wildlife and their habitats. And,…
Battering rams and bicycles
News from Greystoke – on the outskirts of the Lake District National Park, about 26 miles from Cockermouth by the A66 – where seventeenth-century stone cottages cluster around an old-fashioned village green and the parish church of St Andrew’s dates back to the thirteenth century. The village is also home to Greystoke Castle, built by Baron Greystoke in the sixteenth century. This week, Eden councillors ruled…
Every Lidl helps
Hot from the News & Star (Wednesday 19 May), comes news that Lidl will very likely get the go ahead next week, to replace an existing retail outlet and a burnt out filling station with a new store and car park. Sainsbury’s, understandably, are not too happy about the plan – and, once again, there have…
Nimbies and offcomers
So why would we not want a 320-house development, straddling a beautiful stretch of green belt on the edge of town and, coincidentally, just across the road from our home? I pause awhile, having written what I hope is something of a rhetorical question, to consider another tale, from Lower Heyford in Oxfordshire. Only 320? Try multiplying that by fifteen and then…
The bluebells of Rannerdale
It’s the otters I really want to talk about – so much to say, so much frustration. So much obfuscation. But before I do, I should just mention the bluebells. Because, whatever there is out there to make us angry or tired, or frustrated with ‘the system’, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that…
The birds have flown
Another morning another phone call. ‘I’m outside. The police have just arrived. They’re in the field.’ ‘They’, of course, being the now familiar contingent of orange hi-vis and rigger boots. And they’re here, apparently, to rip the rest of the hedgerow out, interrupted in their task by the arrival of we pesky campaigners. While the developer’s representatives…
Blue nets and blackbirds
It was early April when they started ripping out hedgerow, a Wednesday wind whipping down the lane like so many razor blades, nipping any hoped-for spring literally in the bud. Not the sort of day you want to be out there – woolly hat and furry boots notwithstanding – but out there we were. ‘You better come now,’ said Sara. ‘They’re ripping out the hedgerow’….
Random ruminations
Funny how starting a blog changes your perspective on things. Last time I blogged was five years ago, when a pal and I walked the Coast to Coast from St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. It began innocently enough: what better way to spend a two-week break from work? Challenging, fun and (it turned out) unexpectedly weight-reducing – despite…
Hackette on the How 